Fuselage

Just when I thought I was finished with everything and ready to start dismantling the fuselage, I realized that there is still more work to do. The two holes I drilled through the forward leg of the gear leg brackets are held in place by flush-head bolts, so the side skin needs to be countersunk. It took me a while to find the right size countersink cutter (fortunately, I had one!) for these bolts and get it set up to cut to the proper depth.

These are big countersinks. You can see one of the flathead bolts above. I used it to check the depth of the countersink when I was finished. The hole just to the right of these two (gold cleco) had to be done also. Then repeat all this on the other side.

Next, the pilot hole shown above needed to be opened to 1" size for the fuel line to come through into the fuselage from the wing. My 1" hole saw handled this job easily. There are two layers of aluminum to cut through here; the side skin and the thick F-7101 gusset inside.

Finally, I turned my attention to the baggage area. The new F-722 that I brought home from Vans yesterday was deburred, fluted, installed and drilled. Then I checked all the baggage area side panels, etc. to make sure they were all drilled to full size.

Now, finally, I'm ready to start dismantling the fuselage! I hope I haven't overlooked anything. I'm going to disassemble things carefully and thoughtfully and double-check as I go to try and make sure. I'm already collecting a big pile of parts here. There's a lot of work ahead to deburr, dimple or countersink, clean up and prime all this stuff before I can start riveting.

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